Communication: War on the Two-way Street!

Hi There,

So, I get to write a Productivity Wednesday post again after a long while. If you recall, I opened the floor with the very first post on this blog some 5 months ago where I wrote about ‘Of Quantity and Of Quality . . . Introducing the Productivity Blog. Now, 5 months after and about 20 posts later, I think we may have had a very good run and from some of the feedback we have been getting, a notification from ‘Lizzy from 21Search’ or ‘Abidemi from 21Search’ on Wednesdays has become a source of smile for a lot of people.

We do have some rich content and I dare say, the 21Search blog is arguably one of the best sources for the richest content that border on life in the workplace and maximizing your productivity either as an employer, an employee, an entrepreneur, an artiste . . . whoever you are and wherever you are, as long as you have a form of work you engage in . . . and wait for it, even if you don’t have a job, this blog has got you covered. Take a bold step and visit the blog (or click on the ‘Blog’ link if you’re already here) and catch up on all our previous posts so far. You can thank me later . . . and you will.

How do you communicate effectively in the workplace? This might seem like a no-brainer but I would tell you for free that this is the bane of a rather shocking 60% of organizations. The irony of this is the fact that maybe just 20% of these humongous population are even aware of this reality. As far as most of these guys who are ignorant of this are concerned, a bad performance can be blamed on everything else – employee not being a good fit or being too lazy, boss being too bossy and always threatening, competitors having an advantage in lower rates and a bigger workforce, and so on – but communication!

Let us try to define communication in the simplest way we can. Basically, this is the transfer of information from one party to another. As cliché as this sounds, Communication is still a two-way street where the Information Giver and the Information Receiver hold sway. While trying to communicate, I might know what I said but as long as you do not understand what you heard the exact way I intended for you to understand it, I might not have exactly communicated. We would likely find ourselves in a situation of conflict because I would not get the result I was hoping to get from you and you would also have wasted your efforts which would sadly not serve the purpose you had hoped it would serve courtesy of how you interpreted or understood my message. Now, take a deep breath and read this last paragraph slowly. It would make more sense this time.

The easiest way to get out of this conundrum of miscommunication is in one word – Feedback! Again, it all sounds too easy, right? Yes, the best results usually come through very easy processes but more times than not, we seem wired to prefer achieving results the hard way, as though having to bleed, sweat and cry to achieve the best results somehow make the results more valuable. Well, maybe it does to some, but I would rather achieve the best results with less stress than achieve them with so much pain that I literally have no strength left to go for the next hurdle. Easy is sweet, trust me! However, there is a background work to be done to achieve the easy process to an amazing result and most of the time, this is more of a psychological and mental work.

Feedback is also a two-man job. The first job is for the one passing information to ensure that the recipient fully understands it as intended. An exercise as simple as this should suffice:

Speaker/Sender: (after passing the information) “I hope you understand everything I just said?” (Or in the case of an email) “Kindly confirm this is OK with you. I would be happy to provide further clarification if necessary” etc.

Recipient: Yes, I do.

But note that this just might not be enough. The recipient might simply say ‘Yes I do’ just to save face. They might not understand one bit of all the speaker/sender said. This is a common occurrence in the workplace. However, the Speaker/Sender should not just assume that they have communicated. They might need to go one extra step to confirm that the recipient understood the message exactly the way they intended it to sound. Hence, subtly getting the recipient to summarize their understanding of the information or instruction would be more than helpful. This can be done through leading questions or just listening to the recipient do a recap. Through this, wrong assumptions or misunderstood points are easily resolved, and communication is seamless.

I would have to take a break at this point. The conversation would continue next week where we further explore how feedback is a most effective tool for communication in the workplace. Yes! I get to do another Productivity Wednesday post. Yay!

Don’t forget our upcoming training on Audited Financial Statements for Non-Account Executives (AFS4NAE) coming up in April. Please register by clicking www.afs4nae.21search.ng. 

Till next week

GB